Speak Slow
by screaming-poetically
Summary: DL oneshot. When your love lets you go you only want love more, even when love wasn’t what you were looking for. Please review.


**Title:** Speak Slow  
**Summary:** DL oneshot; short. When your love lets you go you only want love more, even when love wasn't what you were looking for.  
**Disclaimer:** The names of all characters contained herein are the property of Anthony Zuiker, Jerry Bruckheimer Television, CBS and Alliance Atlantis. No infringements of these copyrights are intended, and are used here without permission.  
**A/N:** Fic is titled for a Tegan and Sara song of the same name off their album "So Jealous."  
**Rating:** T

**Speak Slow**

_"When you want love doesn't matter what you're looking for  
__Speak slow, tell me love where do we go."  
-Tegan and Sara_

Her name was Cindy and the reason she broke up with Danny was because during sex he had called out someone else's name. He felt bad afterwards and tried to make excuses but she wouldn't listen.

"Danny," she had said, "you value honesty too much to be a good liar."

She packed all of her things in a cardboard box, careful to leave nothing behind. She was never coming back and part of Danny regretted it because he enjoyed the unconditional companionship. Before she left she turned at the doorway and said,

"I think it's time you're honest with yourself."

He spent the rest of the day contemplating her statement and a part of him thought it would have been easier to ask what she had meant. Danny knew the answer lay in the name he had called out; now he just had to find a way to deal with it. As Danny did his laundry he folded clothes and thought about folding her into his life.

---

Lindsay rode to the crime scene with Mac and he was preoccupied. When she mentioned Stella he looked at her sharply and told her to keep her mind on the job. Danny was at the scene too so Mac handed the case off to them when a double homicide came in.

She told Danny she'd take the back room (the secondary crime scene) and he nodded vaguely; she grabbed her kit and the spare camera but she could feel Danny's eyes on her as she walked away. Lindsay snapped a few pictures of the blood spatter before she heard a thud coming from the closet only a few feet away and she had almost dropped the camera. She called for Danny—

Later Lindsay would recall only snatches of what happened that day. She recalled a gunshot, a sharp pain in her abdomen, a few words with Danny before she was taken away in the ambulance. He looked panicked, she remembered that.

"_That's a lot of blood," she said weakly._

"_Means you're alive, is all."_

She woke up in the hospital, an IV sticking out of her right arm. Lindsay could feel a pressure on her lower stomach and when she looked there was a bandage there. She looked out the window and got a great view of a brick wall, so she turned the other way; too late she remembered she'd been shot and felt a sharp pain.

She had always hated hospitals; they were too sanitary and doctors always said "How are we doing today?" like they were the ones hurt when really they weren't. That bothered her. Danny sat in a chair by her bed and he looked terrible. He watched as she stared at him, and sat up fully, rubbing the weariness from his eyes and putting his glasses back on.

"You almost died today," said Danny.

"I feel horrible."

"I'm glad you didn't die today."

Lindsay looked at Danny and he looked drawn, older. He had dark circles under his eyes and blood on his shirt, on his hands. Her blood, she realized.

"_You_ look terrible," she said reproachfully.

He was grinning now and she could tell that he really was glad she didn't die. If anybody asked Lindsay would say she was glad too. They sat a few moments in silence before Danny said,

"I want to fold you into my life."

Lindsay was puzzled by this and Danny leaned forward. He seemed eager to explain so she remained silent as he took off his glasses and took a deep breath.

"I was doin' my laundry an' my girlfriend broke up with me. She broke up with me before the laundry but it's all connected. I called her someone else, I called her Lindsay, see?"

At this she bit her bottom lip and understood, at least in some part, what Danny was trying to get at.

"After she left I got to tryna think about honesty. I had to be honest with myself, an' I had to do my laundry so I thought, I'm folding my laundry an' maybe I can fold you into my life. I got ghosts an' secrets but not any mountain of unsorted wash could fill the empty side of the bed."

Lindsay has had men tell her they care before but that was a one of a kind declaration, Danny telling her he cares by comparing her with laundry. She decided it was okay, though, and fell asleep with Danny holding her hand. Mac came in and made Danny leave to get changed but he kissed her goodbye and made sure that he was back before she woke up.

"So," Danny said nervously, "where do we go from here?"

She offered him her sunniest smile and said easily, "I don't know, Danny, but we'll find out. Together."

Lindsay doesn't mind Danny's ghosts and secrets, and Danny doesn't mind the nightmares Lindsay has. They'll tell each other when they're ready. And they don't mind that they don't know what will come next, because in the end all that matters is that they're together.

_Finis._


End file.
